Tuesday, August 12, 2008

"Asexuals" simply put do not experience any or much degree of sexual attraction. Some asexual's have some desire for aspects of sexuality while others have no desire to engage in intercourse whatsoever. Some asexuals do enjoy romantic relationships and identify as straight, gay, bisexual, or pansexual while others feel no need for affectional orientation.

I think that one of the biggest challenges that asexuality poses for the way that we conceptualize asexuality is that many asexuals do enjoy/are interested in things that people generally associate with sexuality (like forming romantic relationships.) But the fact that many asexuals enjoy them raised the question of whether the links between these things and sexuality is as necessary as is generally supposed.

Pretzel - I think asexuals being romantic is a pretty simple concept if you ask me, but people seem to have a tough time wrapping their heads around the concept. Society does a good job ingraining the idea that somehow all relationships must be sexual. The fact is most of our relationships are non-sexual and that can include a loving partner.

I'm asexual. I don't want to lose my virginity anytime soon, and I can't foresee any time that I actually would. I would love a romantic relationship that was like a best friendship, except with monogamy. Just two really close friends sharing their lives with one another.

I admit, it's actually taken me a while to wrap my head around the very idea of asexuality...for a while, it was just something that to me--if I can be honest--was just "wrong" and weird in a way. But I've been doing better at understanding asexuality through a bit of research and mostly through blogs written for and by asexual people & getting their insights, and not subconsciously kinda looking down my nose at them.

queersunited, I was reading your response to my comment and I realized that I had said, "I think that one of the biggest challenges that asexuality poses for the way that we conceptualize asexuality..." I had meant to say "biggest challenges that asexuality poses for the way we conceptualize sexuality." (Bangs head on desk.) I need to do a better job of proofreading comments.